


Temptation

by thebriars



Series: drumfred ficlets [7]
Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, candle imagery for daysss, its 1840 and the gays have it rough, the picture of dorian gray - Freeform, weird short drabbles as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 21:12:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebriars/pseuds/thebriars
Summary: Edward suddenly felt the burn of the flame again, a blistering hurt beyond words. Alfred was a temptation unlike any other, simply because he was no game. He was solid and real and the way he turned cold every time they grew closer made Edward think that he too had been burned.•••just my usual shit





	Temptation

**Author's Note:**

> so iwritetrash’s spellbound got me back into tpodg and i swear every time i read it it gets better
> 
> ALSO GO READ SPELLBOUND

_“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what it’s monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.”_

  * _Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”_



 

When Edward was a boy, he had tried to capture the candle flame on his father’s desk in his hand. Its tantalizing dance had entranced him, and its heavenly glow had led him to believe it harmless. Nothing that beautiful could be dangerous.

 

The scar from the flame still sliced through his right palm, a rosy burst of tender tendrils. As Edward grew, he found himself tempted by one consistent sin. His eyes were drawn to different flames- the kind that burned in the eyes of interesting people. Beautiful people. He slowly began to grasp at this new flame and found it more pleasant than anything, and he tangled in it happily. But then he was older and he knew that it was, at the very least, _unnatural_ , to see that flame in men.

 

Then again, Edward couldn’t quite bring himself to care much. He flirted, a new and fascinating dance of carefully placed words and movements and slight indiscretion, all for the hope that anything at all was mutual. It was fun to toe the edge of the cliff, to feel the exhilaration of being so, so close to the end, and yet never quite falling.

 

And then there was Alfred and Edward lost his footing and the rush of air as he tumbled to the ravine below felt like the first real breath he’d taken in ages. Alfred was the sort of flame that burned brighter and danced lighter than the rest, eyes like sapphire and the permanent smirk slicing through his angelic visage nothing less than a trap. 

 

Edward suddenly felt the burn of the flame again, a blistering hurt beyond words. Alfred was a temptation unlike any other, simply because he was no game. He was solid and real and the way he turned cold every time they grew closer made Edward think that he too had been burned.

 

But never before had Edward yearned for anything quite so badly. Alfred’s flame shone bright enough to blind him and Edward was more than prepared to feed his everything into the fire. 

 

The problem was that Alfred valued things like logic and, while Edward was a man of intellect, logic was not something he wished to apply to matters of passion. And, by God, was Alfred his passion. Alfred was equally as fickle and untamable and dangerous as that candle, and yet Edward would suffer through the pain again for just a moment with such an angel.

 

Perhaps it was dangerous to hold Alfred so high above the rest, for men who preferred their friends to their wife were set on a path for disaster. Edward had seen enough people hold on too tightly to the flame to know that it was easily the end of many, but, nevertheless, Edward aches for him. It hurt more to hold his hands to his chest than it did to hold them against the fire.

 

And so, throwing caution to the wind, he and Alfred came together in the daze of a summer evening and the flame burned brighter than ever.

**Author's Note:**

> also i’m not saying jordan waller should play lord henry wotton but jordan waller should play lord henry wotton
> 
> •••
> 
> i may be ace but i’m a hoe for comments <3


End file.
